For the last few years, my 10-year-old son Advay has always been the new kid. And we have been the new family on the block.

We left our home in India in 2013. Since then, we have lived in Malaysia and Singapore before moving to Appleton last year. This meant that everything in our life was constantly changing. Our friends, our surroundings, the culture around us and so on.

It was a chaotic time filled with ambiguity and change. But it was also a time filled with incredible experiences and possibilities.

We found ourselves grappling with the struggle between ambiguity and new experiences. Two lessons emerged as we navigated this.

The first one was to take things one day at a time.

Each day, no matter where we were, we told ourselves: This is home. This is where we are today, and are safe and happy. That’s all that matters.

We lived each day with renewed vigor, and treasured the experiences that came with it.

The second lesson was that of gratitude.

We became so grateful for a chance to travel the world, to meet amazing new people, who opened their homes and hearts to invite us in.

It has been almost a year since we arrived in Appleton. The chaos has subsided, and there isn’t any ambiguity anymore. The incredible Appleton community that we live in has made this journey even more memorable.

The lessons that we learned from our journey of moving remain with us even today.

We celebrate each day as it comes — come sun, rain or snow! We learned to do that even in the “mild” winter that we experienced last year.

We enjoy each day with the experiences that come our way, be it driving in our first snowfall, getting to become Packers fans or just being outdoors in the summer.

We take the time to stop and notice the beauty of nature that exists around us with our numerous parks and trails.

But more importantly, we feel incredibly grateful.

Grateful for the opportunity to live in a neighborhood where people genuinely care and look out for each other.

Grateful to be able to live in a community where we are given ample opportunities to contribute our time and talents.

Grateful to meet many wonderful people, who open their hearts, and homes, to us.

Grateful to have access to great schools and activities for our children.

Grateful for the countless number of people, who were strangers in the beginning, but helped us settle into our new home with ease, and became more than friends along the way.

We may have started this journey not knowing which place to call our home, but today we can say that we feel completely at home in this wonderful community.

Aditi Patil is an Appleton resident. She can be reached at Aditi.Patil@thedacare.org.